statisticsfall2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Is it common for schools to send out acceptances, wait to see how many people commit, and based off that- send out a next round?
Stat Assistant Professor Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 statisticsfall2014, I think some schools do that... maybe not the top tier places (I think in that case, they just have waitlist and rejections after first round acceptances), but definitely some schools right below that. I myself am not taking any chances on my end though. I already submitted new applications to a few places with Feb. deadlines. I presume I will not get into any of the top tier places. If I had gotten into a top 15 school, I would have given much more serious focus on pursuing an academic career, but now, I'm more open to industry too where prestige of the institution doesn't matter as much.
StatPhD2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Is it common for schools to send out acceptances, wait to see how many people commit, and based off that- send out a next round? statisticsfall2014, I think some schools do that... maybe not the top tier places (I think in that case, they just have waitlist and rejections after first round acceptances), but definitely some schools right below that. I myself am not taking any chances on my end though. I already submitted new applications to a few places with Feb. deadlines. I presume I will not get into any of the top tier places. If I had gotten into a top 15 school, I would have given much more serious focus on pursuing an academic career, but now, I'm more open to industry too where prestige of the institution doesn't matter as much. Some of the top schools do it in a stagerred format for whatever reason. Chicago last year sent out its admissions over a two week period
Stat Assistant Professor Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 StatPhD2014, Thanks for the clarification. I would think it is a little bit less common at the top places. But based on the erratic acceptances of some places like Iowa, UNC-Chapel Hill and UCLA in the past (erratic in the sense that people are being accepted late in the season), I do think there definitely are places that send out several rounds of acceptances based on how many people accept their initial offers.
statisticsfall2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Yeah that would kind of make sense for their perspective. I'm wondering if some schools are waiting to see if I get the NSF fellowship or not. Either way, I think we should not be discouraged by not getting into a top 15 school, and should accept that our application credentials were not top tier. As long as we can get a foot in the door somewhere (and it looks like we've taken all steps necessary), we will have accomplished a lot. If not, from what cyberwulf said, our hand has already been dealt before starting the application process, and since we did the best that we could, there's nothing to really regret.
Stat Assistant Professor Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 No regrets, statisticsfall2014! I knew some of these schools I applied to were a reach. But you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take! I'm just hoping I get in SOMEWHERE at this point. I would really only be devastated if I got rejected everywhere AND if I were not confident in my ability to succeed in a PhD program (I had no doubt that I could do the work required for a PhD if they were to admit me, so I don't take rejection as a testament to lack of ability or anything). I thought my record based solely on math/stat coursework, Master's GPA, and GREs were fairly strong indicators of ability, but a lot of people definitely had better overall records for sure (and better records when it comes to math/stat -- i.e. more relevant stats coursework, even higher grades in math and stat classes, etc.). A lot of peope with high GPAs and GREs are also ultimately rejected, so you never really know what was deficient about their applications vs. those who were ultimately accepted.
Stat Assistant Professor Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 FWIW, I got an e-mail from Rice University Statistics scheduling an interview. So this looks promising!
statisticsfall2014 Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 NICE!!!! Congrats! all of the hard work has payed off. I do wonder why we would not have received rejections from some of the schools that have already accepted though. (Harvard, Mich, etc.) since Duke sent out a bunch of rejections earlier
mittensmitten895 Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Anyone heard from Berkeley biostatistics (PhD)? I got a few "UC Berkeley professor" LinkedIn hits in the last week, so I know they reviewed apps.
Stat Assistant Professor Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 statisticsfall2014, Thanks a lot! My guess is that they're finalizing a waitlist and will notify waitlisted applicants and rejected applicants shortly. It seems Michigan and Harvard have a specific target incoming class number that is quite small, so a second round of acceptances seems unlikely. My guess is that it will just be rejections or waitlist at this point. But I could be wrong... I'm just going to infer rejection in my case.
lasso Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Thanks Cyberwulf, I really appreciate it. Looks like Minnesota sent an acceptance out last week that just got posted? Wonder what that means... Did anyone else hear back from Minnesota? This was one of my top choices and one of the schools I thought was a little bit more within reach (but given the competition this year, definitely not a sure bet). Please let us know if the letter was personalized or a rather generic one sent by the department head. Thanks. Hi there, I'm new here. I am the one who got an offer from Minnesota. The letter is pretty generic, sent out by the director of Graduate Studies. The only non-generic thing was they give me an addition small scholarship for academic performance. Anything else let me know. Also, does anyone know when Berkeley and Stanford send out offers? Thanks and best of luck, H.
AnUnladenSwallow Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Anyone heard from Berkeley biostatistics (PhD)? I got a few "UC Berkeley professor" LinkedIn hits in the last week, so I know they reviewed apps. I got an email from them late last week. Due to my background (I don't have a degree in math, stats, or biostats), they admitted me to the Master's program instead. I assume that means the PhD results should be out shortly.
muzili Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 FWIW, I got an e-mail from Rice University Statistics scheduling an interview. So this looks promising! Cong！But it seems that you are the only one who post results from Rice. Do you know how many interviews Rice sent out? Are you an international student?
Stat Assistant Professor Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Thanks muzili. I'm not an international student. I do not know how many interviews they send out.
CauchyProcess Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 (edited) To answer some of your questions, here's how we do things in my department. I would expect that things are not too different elsewhere: - The admissions committee is composed of about 5 faculty. - All members read each PhD application; there is no "pre-filtering", though it's unlikely your application will be read in great detail if your "top-line" numbers (GPA, GRE, TOEFL for international students) are way out of line with department norms. We receive translations of international transcripts, and can usually get a decent handle on how good these students are. - Some number of applicants are "obvious admits", their profiles being simply outstanding in all or most respects. Usually these "slam dunks" occupy about 20-40% of the offered spots. The "good" and "very good" applicants compete for the remaining spots. - After scoring the applicants, the committee meets to focus on the applicants who are "in the discussion" for PhD admission. Factors working in favor of (e.g., really positive letters) and against (e.g., lower grade in an advanced math class) each applicant are discussed and weighed. Sometimes, a faculty member will "go to bat" for a student they think highly of, even if that student ranked a bit lower in the initial scoring. - As I've noted before, applicants worry way too much about research experience and the personal statement. This is not to say that having research experience isn't helpful, or that a strong personal statement isn't an asset, but rather that it is generally much easier (and, in my opinion, more reliable) to rank applicants based on other factors like grades and letters of recommendation. This is particularly true in stat/biostat, where meaningful research experience is relatively rare and it's considered completely acceptable for incoming PhD students to not have much of an idea what they'd like to do research on. Overall, the process really isn't that mysterious: we are trying to identify the most talented students, with an eye towards balancing research "upside" with likelihood of success in the program. The strongest predictors of success in graduate school remain grades, letters of recommendation, and to a lesser extent standardized test scores. Nobody wants to hear that because applicants would like to think that they can dramatically alter their prospects by crafting the perfect personal statement, but the reality is that your fate is mostly sealed by the time you come to prepare your application. A lot of people contend that "admissions is a crapshoot," but that attitude is simply inconsistent with the remarkably high intra-individual correlation observed in individual admissions results across programs. With a few exceptions, an applicant who applies to a set of schools of similar strength is likely to get into either all/most of them or none of them. How different do you think this process is at the top-tier schools for which there is no such thing as an "obvious admit"? At this point, do you think it's still fairly logical, or does it become borderline random? How does a school pick between someone who is ranked 1st in their department at a big public school with a upper-mid-range ranking compared to someone who is top 10% at a top-tier Ivy League? Does it not become sheer madness? Edited February 4, 2014 by CauchyProcess
cyprusprior Posted February 4, 2014 Author Posted February 4, 2014 Anyone heard from Berkeley biostatistics (PhD)? I got a few "UC Berkeley professor" LinkedIn hits in the last week, so I know they reviewed apps. I got an email from them last week (acceptance). There was an invitation to their open house, but no offer of reimbursement for travel costs, so I am doubtful I will go (I live on the East coast).
muzili Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Any international students receive acceptance from UMich or Minnesota? I am wondering if all the results come from students in US.
persistent_homology Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Any international students receive acceptance from UMich or Minnesota? I am wondering if all the results come from students in US. I got one from UMich.
muzili Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 I got one from UMich. Congrats！ But i'm afraid a rejection is waiting for me...
persistent_homology Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Congrats！ But i'm afraid a rejection is waiting for me... Thank you, but you never know. OSU is a solid choice, hopefully you will get the fellowship.
cyberwulf Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 How different do you think this process is at the top-tier schools for which there is no such thing as an "obvious admit"? At this point, do you think it's still fairly logical, or does it become borderline random? How does a school pick between someone who is ranked 1st in their department at a big public school with a upper-mid-range ranking compared to someone who is top 10% at a top-tier Ivy League? Does it not become sheer madness? There are "obvious admits" at every level of school, even top-tier places; as evidence, if you surveyed junior faculty at top programs, you would likely find that most "ran the table" (or came close) when they applied. Also, it is possible to draw distinctions between even excellent applicants, although you could make the argument that such distinctions are of little practical significance. In your hypothetical example, there are several dimensions on which those two applicants could be compared: individual course grades, letters of recommendation, GRE scores, previous research experience, etc. It's unlikely that they will be identical in all respects.
statisticsfall2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Looks like wisconsin has sent out some rejections...
statisticsfall2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 There goes Wharton.. looks like the day of rejections
StatPhD2014 Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 There goes Wharton.. looks like the day of rejections When did you hear from them I didn't get an email from them yet
clurp Posted February 4, 2014 Posted February 4, 2014 I think Penn is sending out rejections in a staggered fashion. I got one last week. Somebody else seems to have gotten one today.
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